It has been 20 years since Linus Torvalds made his famous announcement about a certain kernel that we're all using today. Yes, Linux is now two decades old (and we know that GNU/Linux is older than that, RMS fans!) and a lot of things have happened in that time. For our upcoming podcast, we want you to tell us: what've been your high and low points of the last 20 years? Like, for instance, the release of a certain distro or desktop environment, or the battles against SCO and Microsoft.

Tap your musings into the comments box and we'll read out the most awesome in our podcast. Except for you, Anonymous Penguin. That ain't a proper name.

In this episode: Google spends $12.5 billion acquiring Motorola's smart phone division. Linus switches from Gnome to Xfce and KDE 5 development is about to start. We discover things, draw our own boxes, and listen to your views in the open ballot.

Penguins are cute, right? Pretty much everyone agrees with that, but whether a penguin makes a good mascot for an operating system - that's open to debate. On the one hand, Tux's cheerful face and relaxed posture could be the perfect way to express what we love about Linux. It's not too corporate, it's fun, and it's happy to welcome anyone into its fold. But on the other hand, it could be argued that such a toy-like mascot stops big business from taking the community seriously. Would a more conventional logo make us look more professional? How about a different, more powerful sort of animal?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, and we'll read out the best in our podcast. (If you are an actual penguin, please note that in your message, and we will put on the appropriate voice.)

If you've followed our last few tutorials, you'll be a CakePHP expert by now: you know how to navigate controllers, delve into the depths of models and create views that astound your viewers. But having a taste of the sweet rapid development that CakePHP offers you, you want more, and you want to do more in less time. Fair enough too, so in our last project for this series, we're going to take a look at using CakePHP plugins to extend the functionality of our app. This is the result of the DRY principle (Don't repeat yourself).

This is Karen Sandler, the Gnome Foundation's new Executive Director, delivering her keynote speech at OSCon 2011. It is by far and away the best explanation of why software freedom matters that I've heard in a very long time.

Fedora, Mint, Arch, Ubuntu, Debian and OpenSUSE go head-to-head - we've dropped the six most popular Linux distributions of the day into a cage fight for your affections. Read on to discover which distro comes up top for installation ease, customisation, performance, security and more. Which flavour of Linux gets the gold medal? You might very well be surprised, so read on for all the juicy details...

In this episode: KDE 4.7 has been released and it's awesome. Microsoft and SUSE reaffirm their their patent vows and Chrome is now the most popular browser in the UK. We discover some cool things, write our own Linux jingles and discuss what Linux might look like in ten years.

Right, so I said I would follow up on the last post on this topic by asking a few questions to the comic's creators, and I have! I dropped them an e-mail, Effy even tranSL:ated the first message for me, sent a few questions and these are their answers. I hope you find it interesting, I'm sure the team behind the comic will be pleased to hear any thoughts or further questions you have in the comments below.

It's crystal ball time as we get prepared for the next TuxRadar podcast. We want you to tell us: how do you think Linux will look like, one decade from now? We don't mean in a cosmetic sense (although you're free to comment on that if you want). But rather, what sort of OS will it be, and how will most people be using it? For instance, you might predict that the desktop wars will die out and most users will be running little more than a browser on the kernel. Maybe via Android it'll morph into a free alternative to iOS.

Whatever the case, and no mater how ker-azy your ideas, let us know in the comments below and we'll read out the best in our podcast. Extra points will be awarded to those who fit MikeOS into their visions of the future.

And we're back! Graham and Mike have returned from talking to awesome FOSS developers, looking at mountains and drinking Indian Pale Ales. Stay tuned in the next few issues of Linux Format magazine for interviews, features and more - including a special look at Free Geek, a great service in Portland that refurbishes computers (and puts Linux on them). In the meantime, have a gander at a few pictures after the break.

That's right - Graham Morrison and Mike Saunders are in Portland, Oregon for the world's biggest open source show. We'll be doing interviews for Linux Format magazine, attending talks, enjoying fine beer and, hopefully, meeting some of you too! In the meantime, here's a video stream courtesy of O'Reilly...

I've always been a huge fan of radio, and since moving to Bath without a TV, the radio has become an even bigger part of my daily routine. While I'm quite content with what BBC analogue radio has to offer (the Torchwood radio series was really good, although I fear I already know too much about what's going on in Ambridge!) I was thrilled to stumble across TuneIn Radio, a free Android app that provides access to 50,000+ radio stations from around the world, via the internet.

Just came across this CC-BY comic book that aims to explain the benefits of using free software to young people. The comic's pretty good, it was originally written in Spanish and the translation is a little wooden, but it really gets across the problem of using pirated software well and how free software can help you avoid the need to do this.

In this episode: Apple asserts its patents against HTC. CentOS 6 has been released while GNU Hurd might be ready for the next Debian. Listen to our discoveries and your opinions, and share our joy in finally managing to complete a You Dare Us challenge.

Few people reading this site will claim to be supporters of the Redmond behemoth, but arguably, Microsoft has changed in recent years. The poor reception of Windows Vista, the advancement of Linux in the server space, and the birth of Android and iOS have made Microsoft vulnerable. In many areas, they're the underdog now. And then we have the news that a Microsoft coder made the most changes to Linux 3.0, albeit primarily to support the company's Hyper-V virtualisation interface.

So as we roll up our sleeves for the next podcast, we want your opinions: can we start trusting Microsoft more? Has the company changed - is it competing more fairly than in the past? Or is the Redmond giant's heart still the same, and we should be cautious more than ever of embrace, extend and extinguish? Let us know if the comments below, and we'll read out the best in our podcast. Even if you happen to be Steve Ballmer.

I thought those who read TuxRadar might be interested in Project Euler. It's an old project, but a cool one for people like me - that is, those who dabble in programming and maths and are looking for a set of challenges to help them develop further.

In this episode: Sabayon 6 has been released, Google launches a new social network and Red Hat is doing well. Share in our discoveries, hear our ideas for a 'You Dare Us' replacement and you tackle Firefox version numbers in our Open Ballot.

Unless you've had your head stuck in a bucket of sand in a cave on Mars for the last few weeks (or you're running Chrome and don't care), you will have seen the furore surrounding Firefox 5. But it's nothing to do with features, the UI or anything like that - it's outrage that merely three months after Firefox 4, that older release is no longer supported. No bug fixes, no security fixes - nothing.

Now, Mozilla supporters say this is a good thing: the team can concentrate on new releases, accelerating the pace of development and bringing new features to home desktop users. But those deploying Firefox in the enterprise are fuming: they need to roll out updates carefully, checking for breakage with apps and extensions, and this break-neck pace is turning them to alternatives.

Let us know what you think for our next podcast: is Firefox moving too fast? Should the developers consider business users a bit more, or just focus on the home desktop?

Mag-ay-a? Ma-jee-a? However you pronounce the name, this distro has proven the nay-sayers wrong and shown that a community supported fork of a commercial distro is possible. So, if you're worried about the future of Mandriva but still want a distro that's polished and newbie-friendly, read on for our full review...